JUrmENiHCE

BRIEFS

BRANCH GEORGIA'S SUPER OF YEAR

COLUMBUS, Ga. — Don Branch of Green Island Country Club here has been presented the Georgia Golf Course Superintendents Association's 1998 Superintendent of the Year Award. He received the honor at the annual Georgia Golf Hall of Fame banquet.

MAGCS ELECTS MAIBUSCH

BATAVIA, 111. — The Midwest As-sociation of Golf Course Superinten-dents has elected Robert Maibusch president of the association. Maibusch is the superintendent at Hinsdale Golf Club in Clarendon Hills. Maibusch succeeds outgoing President Kevin Czerkies of Sportsman's Country Club in Northbrook. Vice president for 1999 is Don Ferreri, superintendent at Seven Bridges Golf Club. Brian Bossert of Bryn Mawr Country Club was elected secretary-treasurer. Elected to two-year terms as directors were Kevin DeRoo of Bartlett Hills Golf Club and Greg Thalmann of Fox Run. Dan Anderson of Fox Valley Golf Club was elected to a one-year term. Current directors with one year remaining are Luke Strojny of Poplar Creek Golf Club, James McNair of Orchard Valley Golf Club and Fred Behnke of Mount Pros-pect Golf Club.

CASINO MAGIC IN SILVER PROGRAM

A caption in the November issue of GCN identified Casino Magic in Bat St. Louis, Miss., as being a Audubon Gold Signature project. It is a Silver Signature project.

NO SOLUTION IN SIGHT

Out of nowhere, gray leaf spot devastates rye, tall fescue B y D R . E R I C K . N E L S O N

The 1998 gray leaf spot epidemic on perennial ryegrass and tall fescue has raised this previously

little-known turf disease to a high level of respect from golf course superintendents and other turfgrass professionals who have witnessed its devastating effects.

Those responsible for developing turfgrass specifications for new golf course construction or renovation projects should be aware of the risk of planting straight perennial ryegrass, or seed mixtures where it predominates, and adjust future recommendations accord-ingly.

Since "Pennfine" perennial ryegrass was first released under Plant Variety Protection status in the early 1970s and the subsequent proliferation of hundreds

Gray leaf spot — up close and personal of new cultivars, some turf managers have been lulled into believing that perennial ryegrass is easy, inexpensive and invin-cible as a permanent monostand of turf.

Bouts with both winter kill and now dis-ease on perennial ryegrass in the 1990s are beginning to change those percep-tions.

HISTORY OF PROBLEMS

The fungus responsible for gray leaf spot on perennial ryegrass (Pyricularia grisea) also causes blast of annual ryegrass and gray leaf spot on St. Augus-tine grass. However, since it was first documented on annual ryegrass in Loui-siana and Mississippi in the early 1970s, the fungus had been virtually unreported on any ryegrass until Landschoot and Hoyland (1992) of Penn State University first reported it on perennial ryegrass on golf course fairways in Pennsylvania.

Last year, the disease was observed decimating perennial ryegrass and tall

Continued on page 22

A leaf and debris blower can operate for hours with an auxil-iary fuel tank. This version is the one put together for Ridge-wood Country Club su-perintendent Todd W. Raisch by equipment manager Ronny Cestaro.

Terry Buchen photo

Leaf blowing all day with auxiliary tank B y T E R R Y B U C H E N

PARAMUS, N.J. — Faced with the frustration of their leaf blower running out of gas every 1-1/2 hours, superin-tendent Todd W. Raisch and his crew at The Ridgewood Country Club here found an easy solution.

Equipment manager Ronny Cestaro hooked up a portable six-gallon auxil-iary marine fuel tank, similarly used for

outboard motors, with a hand-operated bulb-type fuel primer.

The Giant Vac Leaf & Debris Blower, which has its own gasoline-powered en-gine with an electric start off its own battery, is bolt-mounted to the flatbed attachment on a three-wheel Cushman Turf Truckster.

"We've had great results/' said Cestaro. Continued on page 23

CGCS to honor Gordon Witteveen

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario — The Canadian Golf Superintendents As-sociation (CGSA) has nominated Gord Witte-veen for the John B. Steel Distinguished

Gordon Witteveen

Service Award for 1998. The award is given to those who have made an o u t s t a n d i n g contribution to the advancement of the profession of the golf course su-perintendent.

Witteveen fits the bill. He was one of the founders of the CGSA and has been active in all facets of the organization for the past 30 years. Witteveen was also one of the first editors of GreenMastermzgdizme and continues to write a column called

Continued on page 23

Traveling the wildlife highways B y R O N D O D S O N

In our daily human lives, we travel to a variety of places for a variety of reasons — to work, the grocery store, meetings and social gatherings, and to and from our homes. Some of us even travel from place to place on a golf course — down the fairways by cart or by foot from tee to green. Depending on the purpose of our travel, we use different modes of trans-portation and different routes.

Wildlife travels as well. Instead of side-walks, roads and highways, they use their own network of paths and trails. Like humans, their routes depend on the pur-pose and destination of their travel. They may travel from a thicket of woods to find a pond or stream for water to drink. They

Continued on page 25

GOLF AND THE ENVIRONMENT

The pond buffer on the 16th hole at River Run Golf Course in Berlin, Md.

N J . Turf Assn. honors Al's Dodson

SELKIRK, N.Y. — The New Jersey Turfgrass Association's distinguished Environmental Steward Award was pre-sented recently to Ron Dodson, presi-dent of Audubon International, in Atlan-tic City at the Trump Taj Mahal.

This award is presented to people or organizations who have performed dis-tinguished service demonstrating dedi-cation to the protection of the environ-ment and preservation of eco-systems. In addition to the award, Dodson's name will appear on the Master Plaque in the Turf Building at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, among such notable past re-cipients as Robert Shinn, commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Envi-ronmental Protection; Judy Bell, former

Continued on page 25

The devastation caused by gray leaf spot has now caused many university professors and turfgrass agronomists to avoid recommending straight peren-nial ryegrass or tall fescue for many turf situations. Unfortu-nately, the warnings and revela-tions came too late for several superintendents who reportedly lost their jobs due to extensive damage to their perennial ryegrass fairways.

The crisis will stand as another harsh lesson about long-term reliance on mono-species turf stands. Turfgrass managers should be prepared to rapidly identify gray leaf spot and deal with it appropriately.

SYMPTOMS The first symptoms of gray leaf

spot are small oval leaf lesions that appear "water-soaked" and then turn a grayish tan hue bound by a darker band. Often, the le-sions are mistaken for early stages of brown patch or other leaf spot diseases, so microscopic exam or laboratory culture for signs of the fungus may be necessary for con-firmation of gray leaf spot.

During humid weather, gray-ish mycelia and conidia (spores) may be seen on gray leaf spot lesions. Eventually on a larger scale, 2-to 3-inch-diameter patches of chlorotic (light green) and twisted leaves appear in the turf. Whole plants may eventually be killed, leaving dead patches which enlarge and coalesce with addi-tional waves of infection.

DISEASE DEVELOPMENT Gray leaf spot has the same

potential for devastating turf as

Dr. Eric Nelson is the senior technical agronomist for facklinGolf Froml989 to 1996 fm^^sm^/^$ he was di-

rector of turfgrass re-search for Medalist/ Northrup King. A 1981gradu-

Dr. Eric Nelson a / f °f ^ f Unvierstty of Rhode Island in tu?fgrass man-agement/plant science, he has taught at Penn State, where he performed his graduate studies, receiving his Ph.D in 1990 in turfgrass breeding, agronomy, and bentgrass tissue culture.

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high heat and humidity, this fast-moving disease has been re-ported to wipe out entire peren-nial ryegrass fairways in as few as 48 hours.

The gray leaf spot fungus pro-duces microscopic conidia (spores) which are easily spread across the turf by wind currents, water splash, surface drainage patterns, maintenance equip-ment, or anything else that tracks across the turf. Conidia then

germinate where moisture is present on leaves for an extended period. Resulting fungal hyphae then infect the leaves and sheaths of the grass plants. Soon, millions of new conidia may be produced by the fungus and spread further across the golf course or geographic region as they were this year. TURF SUSCEPTIBILITY & RESISTANCE

Gray leaf spot develops readily on perennial ryegrass (Lolium

perenne) and tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea), two species which, taxonomically, are closely related. In fact, some of the current turf-type tall fescues had actually been hybridized with perennial ryegrass during their breeding history in efforts to develop their finer leaf texture.

According to University of Maryland ratings of gray leaf spot damage among perennial

Continued on next page

Gray leaf spot devastates Continued from page 21

fescue from New York to North Carolina and west through Okla-homa and Nebraska. At the Oc-tober annual meetings of the American Society of Agronomy and Crop Science Society of America in Baltimore, gray leaf spot was one of the top stories shared by many turfgrass agronomists.

FALLOUT FROM THE EPIDEMIC

Pythium blight. However, gray leaf spot spreads more readily and apparently over a broader range of conditions. It can strike from May through October. Last year, some courses in Virginia were still seeing secondary in-fections from gray leaf spot in October. Under the right envi-ronmental conditions, including

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Witteveen honored Continued from page 21

"Gord Witteveen's Backpage." He has also been involved in promot-ing the golf superintendent at golf-ing events and in the media.

Witteveen has served as the superintendent of the Metropoli-tan Toronto Board of Trade Golf Facility North Toronto for the last 25 years and plans to retire in June of 1999.

Leaf blowing all day Continued from page 21

"The marine fuel tank is strapped, with a piece of rubber, to the flatbed backrest area, with easy access for fueling at the same time as the Truckster is topped off. But it is easily re-moved when we remove the blower."

"The gasoline tank is located on the tradi-tional area adjacent to the gasoline engine," Raisch said. "Because of its size and that it is operated at full throttle most of the time, it will

only operate for about 1-1/2 hours, tops. To allow for the blower to operate continuously during a morning or after a normal shift, we had two choices: hook up an auxiliary fuel line, fuel filter and fuel pump to the Cushman's fuel tank; or the choice we made."

Cestaro also mounted a yellow-colored flex-ible rod so the equipment operator knows where the blower shoot is when backing up for safety reasons.

"It provides our employees an easier and more efficient leaf and debris cleanup," said Raisch.

Gray leaf spot Continued from previous page

ryegrass cultivars, there is a wide range of susceptibility and none were completely resistant.

Rutgers University recently re-ported that tall fescue cultivars exhibit a range of susceptibility as well. Its researchers also reported that all of the perennial ryegrasses they tested were susceptible (Vaiciunaas and Clarke, 1998).

Jacklin Seed is now screening new germplasm for improved re-sistance in the hope that we may develop more resistant cultivars. The important message is that all current cultivars of perennial ryegrass appear to be susceptible to one degree or another.

Compounding the gray leaf spot problem, we know that pe-rennial ryegrass and tall fescue recovery from infestation is poor due to the thoroughness of kill and the non-spreading growth habit of both species. Therefore, even with curative fungicide ap-plications, the turf will need to be inter-seeded for rapid recov-ery, unless there are resistant species such as Kentucky blue-grass or strong creeping red fes-cue present that can spread and fill the voids.

TURF SOLUTIONS

To our knowledge, there are no field reports of gray leaf spot dam-age on Kentucky bluegrasses, fine fescues or bentgrasses. There-fore, where they are adapted, these species provide the best recommended alternatives or complements to straight peren-nial ryegrass or tall fescue. Com-plete renovation or regular inter-seeding of existing stands of perennial ryegrass or tall fescue with resistant species are good economic and environmental so-lutions to the gray leaf spot prob-lem in existing stands.

JacklinGolf has developed protocols to assist in conversion of perennial ryegrass stands to other species. Copies of these recommendations are available on request.

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References: Landschoot, P.J. and F. F.

Hoyland, 1992. Gray leaf spot of perennial ryegrass turf in Penn-sylvania. Plant Disease. Vol. 76 (12) pl280-1282.

Vaiciunaas, S. and B. Clarke, 1998. Impact of cultural manage-ment practices and genotype on the development of gray leaf spot in cool-season turfgrasses. Agronomy Abstracts. 1998 Annual Meeting of the American Soci-ety of Agronomy. Baltimore, Md.

1998 Progress Report of the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program perennial ryegrass tri-als. USDA, Beltsville, Md.

ReprintedfromJacklinGolfs On the Green, Winter 1998 edition.

February 1999 23

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